Extract
from Religious Schools: the case against
a report from the Humanist Philosophers' Group

[Another] argument . . . focuses
on children's autonomy, or rather their lack of it. The fundamental premise
of the argument is that, given the importance of fundamental religious
and value commitments to a person's life, such commitments should be entered
into only subject to all the normal requirements for valid consent: in
particular, competence, full information, and voluntariness.

Religious schools, however,
are likely to violate these requirements - partly because of (younger)
children's lack of autonomy and partly because of the nature of such schools'
missions. …it is one thing for parents in private to bring up their children
to believe what they, the parents, think true and important. It is quite
another for parents to expect that the state should undertake the role
of transmitting such a belief.

The state has its own interest
in ensuring that children grow up to be responsible and capable citizens.
It must design a system of education that serves that end, as well as
promoting the interests of children…

It is to be doubted whether
separate schools for every religious persuasion are really the best way
of promoting pluralism and tolerance in a multi-cultural society. Providing
a full range of sectarian schools in every district would in any case
be impracticable, except perhaps in the very largest cities…

More importantly, if children
grow up within a circumscribed culture, if their friends and peers are
mostly from the same religion and hence also, very likely, the same ethnic
group, and if they rarely meet or learn to live with others from different
backgrounds, this is hardly calculated to promote the acceptance and recognition
of diversity. We have clear evidence to the contrary from Northern Ireland,
where the separation of Catholic schools and Protestant schools has played
a significant part in perpetuating the sectarian divide…

Our arguments support three
key principles which we believe must guide policy-making with regards
to religious schools:
1. In a free and open society, beliefs about fundamental religious and
value commitments should be adopted autonomously and voluntarily...
2. Neither parents nor faith communities have a right to call upon the
state to help them inculcate their particular religious beliefs in their
children, nor further their own projects, customs or values through their
children…
3. In a pluralist, multi-cultural society, the state must promote the
tolerance and recognition of different values, religious beliefs and non-religious
beliefs…

If we were designing the education
system from scratch, the logical consequence of these principles would
be that there would be no religious schools at all.

…although abolition of, or
withdrawal of funding for, religious schools is a course of action we
advocate, we do not expect to see such a radical reform implemented. Instead,
we would make three practical recommendations that would help close the
gap between our three principles and the status quo.
1. The state should not support the further expansion of religious schools…
2. The application of government guidelines requiring 'multi-faith' religious
education should be extended to cover religious schools...
3. The legal requirements for and guidelines on 'multi-faith' religious
education should be modified to include the compulsory teaching of non-religious
views, such as atheism and Humanism…